


the most remarkable thing about coming home to you

by Nilmiel



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aesthetic Attraction, Blood and Injury, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Demisexual Character, Demisexuality, Falling In Love, Hurt/Comfort, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, M/M, implied sexual content at the end, yet another crusades backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27771523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilmiel/pseuds/Nilmiel
Summary: The savages in the Holy Land have no care for the Lord’s truth or beauty. They were heathens, squatting in Jerusalem, defiling it with their false idols. They visited atrocities on one another and on the good Christians who tried to act as their salvation. The Lord will reward those who cleanse His temple. It is just, and it is right. And so Nicolo goes.—Why, then, is his enemy the most beautiful thing God’s hands have ever shaped?
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 25
Kudos: 234





	the most remarkable thing about coming home to you

**Author's Note:**

> As someone who grew up in a conservative christian household and then later had to reconcile how my faith didn't add up at all with conservatism, I relate to Nicky A LOT. So I figured, why not project more of my experiences on him as well? What if Nicky is like me and is absolutely in awe of artists who can capture the beauty of the world around them, and that's one of the reasons he falls for Joe? Heck, lets just make it a demisexual character study exploring aesthetic attraction? So. Tada. here you are. <3
> 
> a big huge thank you to @oldguardhc on tumblr for beta-ing for me and being a generally delightful person.

Nicolo first remembers beauty in his mother’s hands. Worn and calloused, laced in prayer, frail as earth. The way her fingers interlocked as she knelt, the small movement of her thumb against her forefinger as it traced a tiny path. He remembers sitting beside her as she prayed, and offering up his own simple thanks: _Thank you, Father, for the hands that hold me._

Nicolo remembers as he grew, looking for that beauty in everyone around him. The wizened priest at the service, wearing age gracefully around his neck like an amulet; pious eyes that crinkled in the corners as he spoke in fervent Latin. His older brother’s shoulders as he worked beside their father at the docks, the muscles pulling taught as he hefted crates into his arms. His youngest sister’s tiny bare feet as she toddled across the earthen floor. The grace of a young man’s throat as he swallowed mouthfuls of water. A woman’s tender knees as she knelt to the earth to pick up a wayward bit of cloth.

“There is such beauty in how God created us,” he can remember telling Father Matteo as he oversaw Nicolo’s studies. “Fearfully and wonderfully made, indeed.”

“God has blessed you with eyes for the truth,” the elderly man had told him. “It is your calling to bring others to this knowledge.”

Nicolo had been designated for the priesthood as soon as he could walk. He was the youngest son of a dockmaster, with his eldest brother already taking up the work of their father, the other two with apprenticeships. All three brought home handsome dowries and beautiful wives by the time Nicolo was sixteen. 

“Poor Nicolo,” one of them had teased. “I see his eyes watching Maria when she dances. A man doomed to chastity!” He’d elbowed Nicolo in the ribs and whispered in a hushed tone: “Perhaps one night, we will sneak out, hmm? I’ll tell no one, you keep your mouth shut. You should get a taste of what you’re missing before you have to tend to your flock, no?”

Nicolo remembers the hot pulse of embarrassment in his chest and a flush of indignity. Is that what they thought he saw? He knew, of course, what was expected of a man and his wife. It had never occurred to him that such an act was coupled to the elegance he saw in the people around him. “I’ll do no such thing,” he had replied.

His brother chuckled. “You are well suited to the clergy, I think. Or perhaps— women are not your area of interest?” He had grinned wickedly. “I see you just as often at the docks, watching the men work their boats and their cargo. Is the priesthood how you plan on escaping such a sinful nature?”

Nicolo had stormed away then, red in the face, tears stinging the corners of his eyes. “I’m only joking, Nico!” His brother had called. “You can’t take a joke?”

Nicolo remembers how the grace and allure he saw in those around him suddenly felt twisted and wrong as it sat in his stomach. Guilt and shame rose like bile in his throat when he noticed himself admiring the sway of a girl as she walked in front of him down a path, or the rise and fall of a youth’s chest as he ran, breathless, after his friends. 

“We were made in His image,” he cried to Father Matteo. “Shouldn’t I admire that? Shouldn’t I love that?”

“The flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit. Galatians,” the elder priest had scoffed. ”Lust twists appreciation. Taints it. Do not let your love of creation be darkened with such thoughts. You must be a light to men who have strayed.”

—

The savages in the Holy Land have no care for the Lord’s truth or beauty. They were heathens, squatting in Jerusalem, defiling it with their false idols. They visited atrocities on one another and on the good Christians who tried to act as their salvation. The Lord will reward those who cleanse His temple. It is just, and it is right. And so Nicolo goes.

—

Why, then, is his enemy the most beautiful thing God’s hands have ever shaped?

Nicolo can barely remember now the pain of the blade in his gut. What lives fresh in his mind is the bright contrast of red blood against dark curls. His foe’s throat opening underneath his sword. The light fading from vivid dark eyes. The sharp shadows from the lines of his tendons and the arc of his spine as he falls backward. 

Nicolo remembers stumbling to the ground, clutching his abdomen. The Saracen is in his death throes, gasping and gurgling, his fingers twitching helplessly. Nicolo has killed before— he killed at Antioch and had killed five other men on the battlefield today before this adversary’s blade had caught him. The indulgence given by the pope sat solidly in his stomach. It meant he was forgiven, now and forever, and had no fear of hell or damnation. Still, that didn’t stop the twinges of horror and regret as the men died before him. No longer alight with the life he had found so beautiful. It’s good that this one, Nicolo thinks, is the last death he will cause. That in killing a man so beautiful he meets his own end. 

He struggles, dragging himself over rocks and blood, and settles himself next to his opponent. The man’s beard is matted with blood, his eyes nearly unseeing. They flicker towards Nicolo as he reaches out a hand to touch a cheek. Nicolo’s own throat is filling with blood, and he can’t manage any words before he keels over, his head resting against the heathen’s chest.

—

He feels him die again in his dreams.

—

“I killed you,” he gasps when his enemy stands before him again, days later. 

The Saracen spits something acerbic in his own language. 

Nicolo doesn’t register the pain that blooms in his chest as the scimitar strikes home. The only things he remembers before he dies a second time are the taut rope-like muscles of the wrist that swings the blade, and the naked grief in its wielder’s eyes.

—

He dreams of two women, standing fast against a tide of adversaries. 

—

They find each other again and again. It becomes almost intimate, his dance with this man. Nicolo learns him by his blade. He commits to memory the fluid movements of his body as he leaps and slashes. He dies on Nicolo’s sword, and then Nicolo dies with the enemy’s hands around his throat. He dies once cradled in his foe’s lap, a dagger in his neck, as the man weeps. Nicolo returns the favor with a blade severing his opponent’s spine and catching him as he falls.

On the day the crusaders launch their attack supplemented with the siege equipment from the newly arrived Genoese ships, Nicolo kills the man for the seventeenth time. He drops his sword. He stands over his foe’s body, breathing heavily as the gash in his side knits itself back together. “Please, stay down this time,” he begs. 

Nicolo’s surviving comrades have flooded past him onto the walls of the city, leaving the dead under the cooled early morning sky. There is such beauty on the battlefield, and all of it profane. His mind is in shambles. He cannot reconcile the cloying stench of death with the brilliant hues of red and gold in the sky; nor the cries of the dead and dying with the elegant dance of battle. His faith is shaken by the idea that God, in all His glory and wisdom, would bring him here to destroy His greatest work. That He would bring Nicolo back again and again from death only to wreak such havoc and destruction. Nicolo had convinced himself in his mind that the people he would encounter here would be ugly and demonic, that their cities would be twisted and demented. But these people, these cities were just as elegant and beautiful as what he had left behind. Perhaps moreso, to his eyes, as each sight was also colored with the wonder of novelty. And instead of bringing light and beauty, they brought only death.

And this man, with his dark eyes and sinuous form, his white teeth, and plentiful curls. This man he fought again and again. Perhaps if this man would only stay dead and decaying, the world could fall back into place. He could continue in righteousness, knowing he carried the light of God’s truth and His beauty to breathe new life into the Holy Land.

But even now, the heathen before him gasps a shuddering breath. Color floods his cheeks and his eyelids flutter as his chest rises from the dirt as if pulled by a string. The man lunges for his scimitar and stands with the elegance of one who has risen from the dead many times before. Nicolo sighs brokenly and drops to his knees. 

His foe steps forward, giving only the barest glances to the dead all around them. He places the blade gently beneath Nicolo’s chin where he kneels, and forces him to look up and meet his eyes.

“I’m so tired,” Nicolo sighs, feeling a drop of blood pooling where the iron kisses his skin. 

His enemy regards him then, his eyes narrowing. Nicolo drinks in the subtle movement of his lips beneath the thick beard, the knit of his eyebrows, the quick beat of his pulse against his collar bone. He thinks he has never seen anything so lovely.

Slowly, painfully, the sword at his throat drops away. It falls with a clatter to the ground, but Nicolo keeps his eyes on the man in front of him. His own chest heaves in relief, and something warm and bright ignites in the pit of his stomach.

Then screams begin to rise from behind the walls, and Nicolo goes abruptly cold. These aren’t the cries of men locked in battle. This is the sound of slaughter.

The Saracen spins away from him and _wails_ , a cry of torment so guttural and brutal it chills Nicolo’s blood. The man launches himself back towards the wall, tripping over bodies of the dead. Nicolo cries out and lunges after him. He is barely able to wrap his hand around his opponent’s ankle as he is scrabbling over ground slick with blood, and the man topples to his hands and knees.

“You fool,” he chides as he scrambles to hold the man down. “Even undying, you are one man! What can you do?” Nicolo doesn’t know if the man can understand him, but the Saracen struggles a bit less and twists to face him with vitriolic hatred blazing in his eyes. He snarls something in a language Nicolo never bothered to learn— why would he have wasted time learning a language of the usurpers of the Holy Land? —and then there’s a white-hot pain between his ribs as a blade runs through his heart.

—

Nicolo wakes bound and gagged with his face scraping against sand and rock. He coughs once, his throat dry and aching. He receives a quick kick to the side in response. Nicolo twists around and sees the Saracen sitting a few feet away from him beneath the shelter of a leaning rock. 

He says something in his own language, hot and gruff. Nicolo starts, perhaps because now he hears him without the brutal clang and screams of battle surrounding them. His _voice_ , the way he shapes his tongue around the foreign words is like rich wine flowing into a chalice. 

Nicolo huffs against the gag.

The man continues speaking, anger touching his features. Even though he cannot understand the words, Nicolo knows the meaning behind them. _Invader. Murderer. Demon._

Nicolo shuts his eyes and turns away. Even if he weren’t gagged, what could he say? Could he defend himself? 

The dark-eyed man is silent for a long moment, but then leans forward and tugs the gag from Nicolo’s mouth. Nicolo stretches his jaw, feels his tongue stick drily to the roof of his mouth. He says nothing, just stares at the man before him. The man in question gives him a long, appraising look and then takes pats himself on the chest twice, maintaining eye contact.

“Yusuf,” he says. 

Nicolo tries to fit his mouth around the name, but his throat is so dry all he can force out is a pathetic cough. 

A waterskin is shoved roughly to his lips that it bangs on his teeth, but he takes it gratefully, swallowing mouthfuls of water like a drunkard. “Yusuf,” he tries, once the water is pulled away. He looks up at the man, the line of his jaw beneath the thick beard, the shape of his nose, the dark richness of his skin, and he names him. “Yusuf.”

Yusuf nods, and gestures back to him in question.

“Nicolo,” he replies. “My name is Nicolo.”

—

Yusuf doesn’t untie his arms, but he does unbind his ankles so he can lead him through the desert in the evenings and early mornings. They rest during the heat of the day in whatever shelter they can find, and spend the dark of the night sitting around a fire if they can build one, or in the silent dark if not. They have very little to eat besides the meager game Yusuf is able to catch. Nicolo has eaten more insects in the few days they have traveled together than he has in his entire past life. He’s fairly certain they won’t permanently die from hunger or thirst, but the pain of starvation isn’t something he is keen to experience. So he doesn’t complain when Yusuf feeds him locusts or bits of meat from a lizard he caught. Nicolo believes they must not be too far from a river, because Yusuf will vanish for an hour or so each night and return with the skin full to bursting and will let Nicolo drink his fill.

He doesn’t know where they are going and doesn’t ask. Nicolo spends his time thinking, occasionally in prayer, trying to reconcile everything that has happened in the past weeks. He lets Yusuf lead him, heedless of destination because it removes one burden from his mind. There is nothing left for him in Genoa: his parents passed, his brothers and sister tending to their own families and businesses. He had left the priesthood behind to fight in a war he thought was holy, and there was no one left to miss him. He had reconciled never returning as he lay dying the first time. And now, dozens of times later, he isn’t even sure he’s human enough to be welcomed back.

Yusuf speaks to him as they walk, sometimes softly, inquisitively. Sometimes he curses him, snarling and angry. He tries a few other languages a couple of times. Nicolo recognizes Greek, he’d heard a smattering of it spoken around the docks as a boy, but he can’t respond except to say _please_ and _thank you_. His learning had only encompassed his native tongue and Latin, and when he tries the latter, Yusuf squints at him and shakes his head.

One night, as Nicolo is arranging himself by the fire, Yusuf approaches him and drops the waterskin in front of him, just out of reach. He points at Nicolo and says, “Nicolo.” He points to himself and says, “Yusuf,” and then points at the water and gestures to him expectantly. “Ma’an,” he enunciates slowly. 

“Water?” Nicolo guesses at his meaning. Yusuf smiles, and it’s _blinding_. The firelight catches in his curls, on the dimples in his cheeks, and the laugh lines in his eyes are enough to make Nicolo’s breath catch.

“Water,” he says in his honeyed voice, and Nicolo smiles and nods at him. “Water,” Yusuf says again and takes the waterskin and stands. He tosses it to himself with one hand and pivots to point at the fire. He looks at Nicolo expectantly.

“Fire,” Nicolo acquiesces, and Yusuf repeats after him. He says the words so neatly, and with such delicate care. Nicolo thinks that with this and the other languages he had spoken so beautifully, this man must be a scholar. He seems genuinely delighted with each word Nicolo offers to him, accepting each one like a tiny gift. He all but dances around the campfire, pointing at small things around them and naming them in turn. It makes his gut clench. This man, smiling in the glow of the fire, intelligent and inquisitive— Nicolo had killed him and killed him _again_. 

“Rock, water, sand. Nicolo,” Yusuf says. He pauses, an idea forming in his eyes. He tilts the skin to his lips and mimes drinking.

“Drink,” Nicolo offers up, his voice tight.

Yusuf tries the word on for size, and then sits back down and regards him carefully. “Nicolo, drink water?” He asks, shaping each word carefully like a river flowing over smooth pebbles. 

Nicolo’s heart thuds in his chest. “ _Please,”_ he says in Greek and nods. His hands are still bound behind his back, and so Yusuf crosses over to him, still smiling, and tilts the skin to his lips. Nicolo drinks deeply and mutters a small _thank you_ in return.

Yusuf’s eyes linger on him for a moment, but the light and the smile fade from his features like water slipping through his hands as some dark recollection settles over him. He yanks the skin away and turns, muttering darkly in his own language as he settles back down across the fire, reaching for his blade and settling it on his hip.

He doesn’t speak to Nicolo again for two days.

—

Then Yusuf doesn’t return when he goes for water. He had left Nicolo as usual, hands bound behind his back beneath a spindly desert tree. It normally takes him less than a couple of hours to return, but Nicolo thinks that at least four must have passed before he decides perhaps he should look for him. The moon is bright tonight and the desert around him is lit just clearly enough for him to stand and stumble over rocks in the direction Yusuf had gone. It’s slow going with his hands bound, but he manages to pick his way downhill at a steady pace until he hears the sound of water.

Nicolo strains his eyes, but cannot see any movement near the banks of the river. “Yusuf,” he calls in a whisper. “Please,” he tries again in Greek. 

There’s no answer.

An arrow whistles past his ear, and Nicolo drops to the ground. 

An angry voice shouts out in what sounds to Nicolo like a Norman dialect. He hears scrambling footsteps in the distance coming closer to him and rolls quickly over downhill towards the river. His boot dislodges something metallic as he moves, and he whips himself around to grasp whatever it is with his bound hands. He cuts himself on the sharp edge of the scimitar— _Yusuf—_ but the wound closes over by the time he’s adjusted himself to slice at the bindings on his wrists. The footsteps catch up to him an instant later, and rough hands grapple him to his feet just as the binding falls loose. 

He’s roughly shaken, but as soon as his attackers register his pale face and hair and the ropes that have fallen to the ground, they pause and reassess. There are two of them, both wearing Christian colors. The taller one with a full red beard grunts something at him in a language he’s only heard in passing. When he doesn’t answer, the smaller companion, a weaselly looking man, rolls his eyes and says, “Christian?”

Nicolo nods dumbly. 

“Good, this good. We save you, yes? We save poor captive.” He claps Nicolo on the back. The taller man still holds him by the scruff of his collar. The weasel-eyed man leans in a bit closer. “You show us thanks?”

Nicolo nods dumbly. “Thank you,” he says.

“Good. Now we go.”

Red Hair trades his grip on his collar for a rough hand around his wrist and drags Nicolo after Weasel Eyes. “Wait,” he calls, struggling against the grip. The larger man stops, looking him up and down and grunting. 

Nicolo wrenches his arm from Red Hair’s grip and rubs at his wrist. Weasel Eyes watches him through narrowed eyes, but otherwise doesn’t react as Niccolo stoops and picks the scimitar up from where it had fallen.

“I lost my own weapon,” Nicky offers by way of explanation.

Weasel Eyes snorts. “You use that heathen blade good, then?”

The words catch him off guard. This is _Yusuf’s_ blade. Nicolo tries not to wince. How long had it been since he had stopped associating the words “heathen” or “infidel” with the man who was leading him through the desert?

“Better than nothing in a fight,” he explains. This seems to satisfy the two Franks, who turn back to walking and beckon for Nicolo to follow them. They don’t have to go very far. Nicolo follows them wearily back towards where he had been shot at, and in the pale moonlight sees the ashes of a fire and a pair of bedrolls laid among the rocks. As they approach, he hears thrashing, and his eyes are drawn to a figure bound on the ground, hands and feet tied together behind their back. Nicolo’s heart sinks like a stone. 

“Ah!” Weasel Eyes exclaims, turning to clap him on the shoulder. “Yes, this one held poor captive, yes? No fear now, pretty one.” He says, misinterpreting Nicolo’s hesitation. Yusuf twists and struggles on the ground, straining to look up at the three men returning to the campsite. Nicolo’s heart twists— he’s covered in blood and dirt. His wrists are raw and bleeding, and a heavy line of blood has dripped down his handsome face from his hairline and caked one bright eye shut. Yusuf’s one open eye catches Nicolo, and he stares at him with fresh vitriol. He spits something caustic around the gag they’ve shoved in his mouth.

“Yes, these demons are something,” Weasel Eyes continues, walking around Nicolo to kneel in front of Yusuf. Yusuf tries to heave himself at him, but he doesn’t manage much bound as he is. Weasel Eyes spits on him. Nicolo clenches his fist.

“Did you know they have pact with Satan?” Weasel Eyes says, turning back to Nicolo with a glint in his eye. Nicolo sets his jaw. “We find this one by river. Shoot him dead. But he lives still, see?” 

“That’s impossible,” Nicolo is barely able to mutter. 

“No, it is true! We try again, you will see.” Weasel Eyes smirks. He pulls a dagger from his belt, flips it in his hand, and plunges it into Yusuf’s neck before Nicolo has a chance to react. Yusuf’s one eye widens and a sickly burble slips past his lips along with a river of dark blood. He twitches, but Weasel Eyes has him pinned to the ground and all he accomplishes are a few spasms as he dies.

A strangled cry tears its way out of Nicolo and he lunges, unthinking, burying Yusuf’s scimitar in Weasel Eyes’ back. The man gags and turns his head to look back at Nicolo, eyes wide in surprise. A thin stream of blood dribbles from his lips as light leaves his eyes and he topples to the side, falling beside Yusuf’s lifeless body.

Nicolo yanks the blade free with a sickening squelch, and only just avoids being run through as Red Hair bellows and charges him. He screeches something in his native language Nicolo doesn’t understand, doesn’t need to. Red Hair brandishes his broadsword and swings it down as he turns back towards where Nicolo had leapt out of the way. Nicolo raises the scimitar to block, but he overextends his reach, unused to the lightness of the blade compared to his own longsword. The scimitar flies from his hand, and Red Hair follows through with a backhand that cracks Nicolo’s jaw and sends him tumbling to the ground. His head spins as he tries to get his bearings, but the only thing he registers is Yusuf sputtering as his body jolts him back to life before Red Hair’s sword spears Nicolo through the chest. 

It’s been two weeks since he last died. He finds himself hoping, for the first time in many deaths, that this is not his last one.

—

Nicolo isn’t sure how much time has passed when he is abruptly yanked back to the world of the living. The sky is still dark and starry above him, but the sword that had killed him is gone from his chest and lying beside him. Nicolo focuses all his will on not coughing and drawing attention to himself. Red Hair is kneeling by Weasel Eyes, a stream of what Nicolo guesses are expletives echoing into the night. Nicolo can see Yusuf just barely past him. The Saracen's eyes are fading, blood dripping steadily again from his mouth. Weasel Eyes’ dagger is still stuck in his neck.

Nicolo doesn’t hesitate, something raw and fierce driving him, and rises in a fluid motion from where he was laying, hefting the broadsword beside him from the ground and bringing it down at the juncture between Red Hair’s neck and shoulder. The man screams as he turns, rising, and wrenching the grip from Nicolo’s grasp. Nicolo stumbles back as Red Hair swings an uncoordinated fist at him before dropping to his knees. His eyes are wide with surprise as he sees Nicolo standing before him, blood coating his front but otherwise undamaged. The large brute of a man doesn’t manage any other words before he keels forward and lays motionless.

As soon as he hits the ground, Nicolo scrambles past him towards Yusuf just as chokes on the blade and dies for at least the second time. Nicolo yanks the dagger from his neck, ignoring the way that Yusuf doesn’t so much as twitch in protest. Nicolo moves, unthinking, pulling the gag from the fallen man’s mouth and bringing the dagger to the ropes binding his feet and wrists behind his back. Here though, he suddenly hesitates. Yusuf had left him bound for nearly two weeks— was he really so eager to go back to that? Would it be better if he were to leave Yusuf’s hands bound so that Nicolo was no longer his prisoner?

But the thought of leaving this man bound and imprisoned with Nicolo himself as his captor makes his stomach turn. He remembers Yusuf’s easy smile from a few nights ago, his intelligent words and charming laugh. Nicolo makes up his mind.

He cuts through the bindings with ease, turns Yusuf gently onto his back, and arranges his head in Nicolo’s lap. “Yusuf,” he whispers, looking down at him. “Yusuf, please.” 

The excruciating seconds tick slowly. It must have only been a minute since Yusuf had died, but the pounding of his heart in his chest made Nicolo feel as if it had been at least five times as long.

“Please,” Nicolo tries again in Greek, taking a fistful of cloth from his tunic and wiping at the blood on Yusuf’s chin. “Please.” 

Finally, _finally,_ Nicolo feels Yusuf shudder. The next instant, he’s heaving mouthfuls of air, convulsing and curling in on himself.

Nicolo catches his wrists as he flails. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Nicolo tells him in Genoese, speaking as soothingly as he can, hoping that even if he can’t understand the words, Yusuf will understand the meaning behind them. Yusuf stops struggling and looks up at him with a single golden brown iris. His breath still comes in heavy gasps, but when Nicolo drops his wrists, he doesn’t recoil. 

Relief floods Nicolo’s chest, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He can feel the tears from the stress of the whole situation stinging at the corner of his eyes. He leans down and rests his forehead against Yusuf’s. “Thank you,” he mutters in Greek into the dark curls of his hair. “Thank you.” 

—

Nicolo cannot stop watching Yusuf. 

That evening after Yusuf had vanished on his way to water, Nicolo had held him until his breathing stabilized and his wounds closed. They had both stood, nearly a half-hour later, and trudged down to the bank of the river to wash themselves clean. Nicolo had found his longsword among Weasel Eyes’ and Red Hair’s belongings, and returned to Yusuf his scimitar. The bit of apprehension Nicolo felt going through the Frank’s supplies for food and a fresh tunic vanished as he handed Yusuf a new waterskin; the man’s face had lit up without apprehension, and for a moment he was the smiling shining man he had been several nights ago around the fire. 

Once they were equipped, Yusuf had turned to him, his long curly hair wet and plastered to his face from bathing in the river. “Nicolo?” he had asked. He gestured down along the river and spoke soft words in his own tongue Nicolo could only guess at. It didn’t matter what he had said, really. Nicolo had already made up his mind to follow him.

They make quicker time with Nicolo’s hands free. It’s easy to walk behind Yusuf now without stumbling, and Nicolo finds he cannot stop watching the way he moves. He learns Yusuf’s stride, the way his footfalls sound against the ground. He notices the movement of muscles in his lean calves, and the subtle sway of his hips. His hair is unrepentantly curly from where it slips from beneath his headwrap, and the locks bounce with each step he takes. Nicolo learns how to read when Yusuf grows tired or irritable. He registers the changes in his gait or the flexing of his long fingers.

The words from Father Matteo all those years ago ring in his ears. _You are blessed with eyes for the Truth, Nicolo._ At the same time, his brother’s mocking surges unbidden to the front of his thoughts _. Is the priesthood how you plan on escaping such a sinful nature?_ Nicolo feels his face flush and is instantly grateful that Yusuf is ahead of him and can’t see the color in his cheeks. He ducks his head resolutely and follows after him by sound alone, not trusting himself to look up.

—

In the following years they travel together, Yusuf takes to Genoese like a fish to water. The words come easily to him, and it isn’t long before he can converse casually with Nicolo. Nicolo, for his part, tries to grasp the Arabic that falls so easily and beautifully from Yusuf’s lips, but he doesn’t come close to the alacrity with which Yusuf learns his tongue. He still practices haltingly over their campfires, and even though he struggles, the bright look of approval in Yusuf’s eyes when he masters the use of a simple word is worth every second.

Nicolo doesn’t know what to do with this bright feeling like a tiny sparrow flitting about in his ribcage. He catches himself staring, as he had often done before with others, at how Yusuf moves as he walks. He flows like a river, every muscle in his body working in perfect tandem as he lifts one foot and then the other. His chest moves in time with his steps as he breathes. He carries himself with dignity and joy. When he prays, his hands clasp together just as Nicolo’s mother’s had: calloused and rough, devoted and frail all at once. Where once he felt only admiration, something else stirs deep within him. A longing, a yearning for something he can’t express. He thinks that maybe, once or twice after a long day or a hard fight, Yusuf might be able to see the tiny flame in his chest.

They’re sitting around a fire along with the merchant’s family they were traveling with as guards. Yusuf is conversing brightly with the man’s wife and daughter, telling tall tales Nicolo can only catch bits and pieces of. Yusuf is animated as he speaks. His hands flow around him, highlighted by the flicker of the fire. His eyes shine as he quirks his head to the side and puts on a funny voice for a character in his story. His long curly hair bounces with each movement he makes, framing his cheekbones. Nicolo can see his dark eyelashes flicker against his cheeks when he blinks, the line of his jaw beneath his beard, the roll of his shoulder as he reaches into his bag and pulls out the book he always carries with him. Nicolo’s heart thuds in his chest. He wonders at his brother’s words, years ago, and the bile and embarrassment rise again in his throat and he has to stand swiftly and stumble away from the fire.

—

“What do you write in that book of yours?” Nicolo gathers the courage to ask Yusuf days later, once they’ve arrived in town with an inn. They are stabling their camels, Yusuf is cooing at his as she drinks her fill of water.

“Hmm?” he asks, surprised. 

“The book you keep. You’ve carried it with you for months now, after you bought it in the first city out from Jerusalem.”

“Why?” Yusuf asks, an edge of defensiveness creeping into his voice.

Nicolo flushes. “I’m just curious— you have it close to hand nearly always. It is your business, I will not pry into things you would prefer to stay hidden.”

“Hidden? What— do you think I keep my dark secrets in here from you?”

“I did not mean that. I only meant it wasn’t my business,” he says. Panic thrums in his chest. _I see you just as often at the docks, watching the men work their boats and their cargo_. “I shouldn’t have been watching you, God forgive me.” Nicolo is stumbling over words, emotion building in his throat. 

“You shouldn’t…? Why, am I offensive to you?”

“No! Lord God, no. I—” Nicolo stutters. He has always been able to think clearly, freely, smoothly, in images and feelings and colors and sounds but words— he can’t form the words the way Yusuf seems to so easily. “I don’t want you to think I would taint my spirit.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. He sees it the instant the words leave his mouth, as Yusuf’s lips draw into a thin line and shadows settle behind his eyes.

“Watching me taints your spirit?” he spits. “You know, when first I rose after dying I thought you were a demon who had bound me to you to fight for eternity. These past years we’ve traveled together, since you offered your throat to me and left the battlefield behind, since I learned your tongue and you’ve tried your fumbling hand at mine, I have thought perhaps you were not such a demon as I originally supposed. That maybe Allah, in His wisdom, had bound my life and death to you for some greater purpose. But here you stand, speaking to me as if I am something unclean, something staining you?” he shakes his head, and there’s fire in his voice. 

Nicolo’s own anger begins to swell at having been so incredibly misunderstood. “You make me think perhaps you are hiding something insidious from me with these wild protests.” 

Yusuf laughs darkly. “There is nothing to hide.” He reaches into the saddlebag, pulls the book in question out, and dumps it into Nicolo’s hands without ceremony. “Take it and choke on it,” he hisses and storms from the stables in a huff.

Nicolo regards the book in his hand uncomfortably. He had not expected Yusuf to hand it over so easily, especially in such anger. He had expected Yusuf to be angry with him when he asked, to ask him why his eyes were on him so often as to notice a single book. He’d expected words like those his brother had spoken years ago, picking at his quiet observation. He’d expected cruel judgment, and instead, he felt as though he had given it. 

—

Nicolo knocks tentatively on the door of the room Yusuf had rented.

The door opens a fraction of an inch, just enough for candlelight to shine through the cracks onto Nicolo’s face before it slams shut.

“Yusuf, please,” Nicolo calls. “I know I’ve upset you. I’m no wordsmith, and I’m sorry. I am not able to express myself as you do, and because of that, I’ve brought you pain.”

There’s silence from the other side of the door.

“Please. I haven’t looked at the book, please take it back, and I will be gone from your life in the morning. We don’t have to be bound together, you and I.”

Slowly, the door opens, and Yusuf steps back and motions for him to come inside. Nicolo bows his head and acquiesces. He offers the book as soon as he crosses the threshold, but Yusuf shakes his head, his dark eyes like steel.

“I want you to look at it.” He says, his voice level and serious as he closes the door behind him.

Nicolo swallows. He takes a sharp inhale through his nose and nods. He turns to sit on a meager straw mattress in the corner and settles the book on his lap. He gently lifts the pages and lets it fall open to a well creased place and his breath instantly catches in his throat.

It’s a sketchbook.

He looks up at Yusuf in disbelief, then back at the page.

The pages are filled with charcoal drawings of people. Nicolo recognizes the merchant’s young daughter, her rounded cheeks curved in a smile. Her small hands are folded in front of her, and her bare toes padded softly against the dirt. There’s the merchant himself, his turban sitting proud on his head, his eyes alight with laughter, the lines of the charcoal drawing mirth straight from the page. There’s an image of a woman who had sold them fruit several weeks back, her face graced with age and wisdom. There are landscapes and a drawing of a ship, its hull looming over calm waters with the light reflecting from below. Finally, there’s one of Nicolo himself. His breath hitches as he regards his likeness on the page. He’s sitting on the ground in the light of a fire, eyes caught on something in the distance. There’s light reflecting on his face, casting color on his cheeks somehow even in the monochrome of the charcoal. The lines of his body are pulled tight, as though he’s preparing to stand. He can see the definition of the muscles in his throat, the crease in his brow, and the worry on his lips. His hands, though, are loose, his fingertips touching softly before him. 

Nicolo’s throat works around words that won’t come. He looks from the page up to Yusuf, who is staring at him like a sinner awaiting confession. 

“You _see_ it,” Nicolo gasps. 

Yusuf blinks. “What?”

“You—” Nicolo stutters. “You see what I…” 

“I don’t understand,” Yusuf says, his voice soft as he drops to kneel in front of where Nicolo sits.

Nicolo can’t help it— tears are welling in his eyes and he laughs as he brushes them away. “Fearfully and wonderfully made,” he whispers. “Yusuf, you’ve captured it. You—” The words fall away from him. Nicolo has never been exceedingly eloquent, and how can he possibly describe now the feelings of validation and contentment, desire and yearning, and bright, unabashed joy filling his heart?

He reaches out, unthinking, and cups Yusuf’s face in one hand. The other man starts at the touch, his breath stuttering, but he doesn’t pull away. His dark eyes meet Nicolo’s, and his lips part as he licks them.

“I didn’t know,” Nicolo hears himself saying. 

His fingers hands are tracing the rough curls in Yusuf’s beard and he marvels at the feeling beneath his fingertips. Yusuf swallows and Nicolo’s eyes catch on the bob of his throat, the slight movement of his cheeks. He traces along Yusuf’s jawline, turning his face gently in his hands to take in the movement of muscles and tendons. The candlelight flickers and dances against his dark skin, throwing into sharp relief the angle of his nose, the weight of his brow, the blink of his eyelash. Yusuf doesn’t object as Nicolo dances his fingers over his cheekbones, fluttering his eyes closed as he passes over his eyebrows. Nicolo marvels at the sensation of touching such grace, such _glory_. Everything he saw, all the elegance, the awe, the beauty was made flesh under his touch. He’s aware of his own breath now, coming in ragged gasps as he traces his hands down Yusuf’s throat, his collar bones.

“God, forgive me, I didn’t know—”

Nicolo’s eyes flicker up to meet Yusuf’s, and _oh,_ his _eyes._ They’re on him, the weight of his gaze as warm and encompassing as a blanket. They’re dark and vibrant, the light glimmers in them like sunshine on crystal waves, and they’re only focusing on Nicolo. 

“What good thing have I ever done to deserve my life being tied to yours?” Nicolo wonders. “You are the greatest wonder God’s hands have shaped, and your _hands_ , they can take the wonder of life and goodness and put them to paper.” 

Slowly, Yusuf raises his hand to Nicolo’s own face, his thumb brushing feather-light against his jaw. He’s leaning forward, dark eyes flickering between Nicolo’s own eyes and his mouth and—

He had never imagined being kissed. He’d never thought about it, even after his brother’s words. He had never considered how soft the press of lips against his could be, how tender. He had never stopped to dwell on how it would feel to have hands hold him like he is something beautiful, adored, and precious. He hadn’t dreamed of the fire roaring to life in his chest in a blaze of light and the rush of sensation. And how _fitting_ , how _right_ it feels. How the final piece of the growing feeling settles into place in his heart. This is what is, what it was, what it was always going to be. 

Nicolo gasps in a breath, closing his eyes against the brightness, the warmth, the fierce _love_ that’s raining down on him from every angle, and he tangles his hands into Yusuf’s hair. Yusuf makes a small noise in the back of his throat and steps in closer so their chests are flush against one another. And he isn’t even much taller, but he tips Nicolo’s head back with his hands and kisses him again, his mouth soft and wet and lips opening just a fraction. Nicolo can’t stop the whine that builds in his chest and his mouth falls open beneath the gentle touch. Yusuf takes the opportunity to lick into his mouth, his tongue hot as it presses against his own. 

“Nicolo,” he breathes in between kisses. “Nicolo, my heart, my all—”

Nicolo sputters, breaking the kiss to draw in a ragged breath. “Yours?” he whispers against Yusuf’s mouth. Yusuf’s eyes drift open, looking directly into his own, and he presses their foreheads together. 

“My heart, my moon, my _soul_.”

Nicolo can’t help the smile that breaks across his mouth. “The words of a romantic,” he laughs.

Yusuf grins from ear to ear in return. “You do seem to love the art of my hands,” he says, voice rough. “I thought perhaps you would enjoy the art of my lips and tongue.”

The light in the pit of Nicolo’s stomach ignites in a blaze of fire and he can only nod voicelessly as Yusuf captures his lips again with his own. And as Yusuf presses him down into the straw with his artist’s hands and takes him beautifully apart, Nicolo can only think that this could never be contrary to the Spirit, and instead its fulfillment.


End file.
